And in the case of Jason Kasher, they turn their bodies into
billboards and run 1,000 miles across the country.

Beginning this September, the Temple University graduate will
spend 183 days running in dozens of different cities in order to
pay down his five-figure loan debt.

"It's a pretty unique challenge," Kasher, 23, told Business
Insider. "I was at work one day and I sat there asking myself, is
this something I want to do consistently for five or 10 years? I
came to the realization that it's not."

He had toyed around with the idea of launching his own business
in college but had only managed to pay down $6,000 of his loans
in the year after graduation, leaving nearly $30,000 standing in
his way.

It wasn't until June that he started exploring the idea of a
thousand-mile fundraiser.

"I was
actually getting to ready to purchase a plane ticket to fly down
to Florida to visit family down there ... and the price of the
ticket went up like $100 in three days," he said. "I remember
thinking, I'd be better off just walking the thousand miles down
there than paying this price. And I just made a
connection."

In early July, he quit his job as an operations manager for a
central Pennsylvania-based logistics firm, moved back in with his
parents, and started work on Paidtorun.com.

Kasher graduated from
Temple University in 2012 with $35,000+ in student
loans.Photo: Courtesy of Jason
Kasher

Six miles a day for six months straight:

Kasher isn't the first person to sell their body for advertising,
but he said his motives are much different.

"The one thing that differentiates me from [other sites] is that
what they're doing is based off the money aspect," he said. "I'm
trying to achieve a personal goal for myself, running 1,000
miles."

Each day of his challenge, Kasher plans on running six miles. If
a company wants to buy ad time, they simply ship him an outfit of
their choosing with their logo ("T-shirt, uniform, whatever, I'm
not picky.") and he will wear it for the day. Rates start out
dirt cheap at $1/mile the first day, but increase by $1 each day
thereafter.

If he manages to secure funding for every day of his challenge,
he'll wind up raising close to $100,000 – enough to cover his
$29,500 loan bill three times over.

Of course, that's part of the plan. Kasher plans on using any
additional funds raised to pump into a startup he is working on
with a friend.

"Since I was a sophomore in college, I always thought about
getting into entrepreneurship, but until now I never actually
went full-force and did it myself," he said.

Coming up with a game plan:

Running six miles a day is routine for most marathoners, but
Kasher admits he hasn't consistently run in more than a year.
He's spent the better part of three months conditioning his body
to handle the demand he plans on putting on it.

If he runs into any injuries along the way, he has a couple
weeks' worth of cushion in his schedule for time off. As for
where he'll run, he has a few destinations in mind (New York,
Philadelphia, and Miami, for example), all home to friends who
will let him crash for free.

"I don't have any set course right now," he said. "I'm talking to
friends about where I should run and I think I'll [end up] couch
surfing my way down South."

Giving back along the way:

Kasher is setting aside two days on his trip to raise funds for
charities, Oct. l and Dec. 25. He'll donate 50% of those days'
proceeds to the National Breast Cancer Foundation and The
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, respectively.

"It started off as a quirky idea to see if I could pay off my
loans or make a little money on the side," he said. "I'm pretty
much never going to have a better opportunity to do this in my
life so I'm taking a shot."